Sharing the Dream

22 May 2006

I don’t think there has been a day here that it hasn’t rained. Somehow, I don’t really mind though. It’s usually in the afternoon or evening so it doesn’t often prevent me from doing anything. It also cools things off so that air conditioning isn’t necessary, which is good because not many have it.

Saturday morning I went with another student from PROBIGUA to the market. At first it wasn’t too bad but as we got deeper into the market and it got later into the day, the aisles became extremely crowded. There were venders selling everything from vegetables and meat to handbags and paintings. It was extremely interesting to see but somewhat disturbing as well. For so many of these people, this market is their livelihood. The only way they can survive (and then just barely) is by doing everything but straight out begging you to buy their goods. Sometimes the children will be the ones selling. It was hard but I turned many down. From what I hear, Santiago Atitlan is worse.

I found out last week, that I will be teaching some English and some basic math skills at the school near Santiago. I’ll be there for about 7 weeks so I’ll have plenty of time to run out of material and not know what to teach. It should be fun, but interesting.

Sunday morning, I got up and left the house about 6 am to go to Pacaya, one of the volcanoes that surround Antigua. It was about an hour and a half drive, then an hour and a half climb, but it was well worth it. While we couldn’t walk all the way to the summit, we were able to get, literally, within 5 feet of the flowing lava (as long as we could stand the heat). It was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. I went with two other PROBIGUA students: Jocelyne and Manish. Jocelyne is a speech therapist that just graduated from the U. of Minnesota grad school. In the fall, she’ll work in a mainly Hispanic school doing speech therapy. Manish is a second year med. school student at the U. of Illinois in Chicago. They’re both here for three weeks and then volunteering for another week. They’re both down here so they can use Spanish in their work.

Flowing lava on Pacaya

People are down here for different reasons. Bonnie is an accountant from Denmark studying simply because she wants to. Steve is a retired accountant from Boston, studying down here simply because he can. Pamela is a children’s librarian from Rhode Island and is down here as a “vacation” from work and so that she can relearn some Spanish. Erin is an undergrad at some small college in Kentucky and will major in Spanish. There are a few more people, but everyone’s here mainly for work or just for fun. Me? I guess I’m down here just because I can be and I really want to experience a totally different culture. Yeah, Spanish will come in handy later in life but really, I just want to learn about the culture.

Until next time,
Theresa

go to May 30